10 Ways to Launch a New Blog with a ‘Bang’

Do you want to enter the blogosphere like a quiet librarian enters a classroom, or do you want to rock the stage? I am definitely one to rock stuff out and in this article I will share a few tips to help you make an attention grabbing launch.

If you want to give your blog an exciting launch, your blog needs to be valuable to your target audience, otherwise your hard work will be in vain.

Ask yourself this simple question “Does my blog provide something that a thousand other blogs don’t?” If you don’t have something special to offer, no one will care when you launch or how you launch.

There will always be a certain category of blogs that will not qualify for a special launch and it is up to you to determine if your blog fits that category. Now let’s look at 10 ways that you can launch your new blog with a ‘bang’.

1. Prepare amazing content in advance

Do you want a guaranteed way to launch with a bang? Prepare amazing content before you launch. I am not talking about a quick general post, I want you to take the time of your life to create the most astounding post you have ever come across.

Get some early feedback on the first article and if you don’t get a positive enthusiastic reply, store your article for later and work on something that would give your audience the ‘wow’ factor.

If your message is not worth spreading then millions in advertising will also fail you. The most true and tried method of creating hype surrounding your blog is by creating some really good content and letting the users do the talking.

If you can successfully amaze ten people and get them excited about your blog, you can expect them to share your blog with a 100 more people and this process would go on until the hype expires.

The idea is to convince your first visitors that they have come across a truly great new blog and they absolutely have to share it. No one will share a blog that has poor content or no content at all. If you want a real head start, you will need some truly refreshing content that urges your readers to share it.

2. Run a viral twitter campaign

@yourblogname is giving away a free iPod Nano at http://is.gd/lvxv – RT this message to participate!

This would be a smart campaign, extremely effective and easy to deploy. Just ensure that the prize you offer is exciting enough for someone to re-tweet your message.

You might think that an iPod is just way too much to give away for a Twitter contest but what you want to create is a viral tweet and an iPod Nano will be enough to grab the attention of a lot of Twitter users. If you don’t have the budget to give away an iPod, don’t dispair. Some cold calling and email and you’d usually be able to find a sponsor who is willing to give something away in exchange for some exposure.

3. Provide incentives to early subscribers

I have seen this work very well on many blogs where bloggers usually give away a digital product like an eBook or an icon set to all the users who subscribe to their blog. This will give your visitor the push needed for them to subscribe.

If you can offer a valuable freebie that is related to your target audience, it can radically improve your subscriber count in a very short time. If you don’t have something worthy to offer your subscribers you might as well not offer anything at all. Make it worthwhile.

4. Hold a contest

Holding a contest gives your blog an interactive element rather than being a one way conversation, you can challenge your users and allow them to be part of your community.

Your contest should challenge a user into participating rather than bribing them into participating. A contest should be exciting to your target audience, it shouldn’t be complicated, but don’t make it too easy either.

If you have a design blog for example, you might consider hosting some sort of design competition and give away a brand new Macbook to the winning entry. This will surely turn some heads and help your branding efforts.

5. Run a brute-force ad campaign

What’s better than one ad on one blog? A lot of ads on a lot of blogs at the same time! A lot of new blogs are coming in with investor backing and have the money to start big. If you are one of them and want a head start, then an advertisement campaign will do just that.

Instead of buying one advertisement for one year on a single blog, buy 10 adverts on several related blogs for the month that you launch.

You cannot expect a surge of visitors just like Gucci doesn’t expect a surge of customers after advertising in a magazine, but you can expect your blog to slowly turn into a brand.

6. Host an event or a party

Show the world that you are not one to sit idle. Call up your friends and take them out for a fancy meal, order a cake and celebrate the birth of your blog. Depending on the scale of your blog, you might want to take this to the next level and invite anyone in your area to your launch party.

Blog about your party, as this shows your readers that you are a real person in the real world establishing a connection with them. It gives your blog a face and makes it easier than ever to create a community around it.

7. Give away prizes

Who doesn’t like giveaways? You’ve probably seen many food companies offering free tasting of their new product at supermarkets.

They usually give you a sample of their product, or offer you a freebie of some sort when you visit their stand. This is a very efficient way of reaching out to customers who might not try their product on their own.

In our case, a blog could give away prizes for commenting, subscribing or becoming a Twitter follower. This is a very common strategy among established blogs and works like a charm.

If you only have a limited amount of prizes and a lot of participants, simply choose a few winners at random to keep things fair. You can use random.org to select a random number.

8. Promote your posts on social media

This should be done from the day you start your blog and for every new post you make. Here is a powerful list of websites where you can submit your posts to gain some initial momentum.

Once you get the first few visitors, it is up to your visitors to take the next step. If your post is capable of convincing the reader that it’s worth sharing, you can expect it to get ‘dugg’, bookmarked in Delicious or retweeted.

9. Guest post on other blogs

Not everyone can afford to purchase an advert on a leading blog to get major exposure. A great alternative is spending some time and create great content for other well known blogs and get paid for it.

Guest posting is a great way to make some money and get some exposure. Write an article for a high profile blog and ask them to publish it in the first week of your launch if possible. You can now introduce your new blog at the end of your guest post.

10. Interact with your user base

Bloggers can get so engulfed in getting new readers that they forget about the readers that they already have.

Interacting with your user base is an excellent way to expand your community as users who like your blog are already on it and these are the same users who will tell their friends about you. So take some time off of analysing your stats and counting your diggs and simply reply to the comments left and emails received.

In addition to replying to their comments, ask your readers what they want and expect from you. If you are a tutorial website, you might want to ask your users what tutorials they want to see next. This makes users feel that they have a say in what you do and makes them feel attached to your website.

In Short

Get creative, do something exciting and get people to love you!

Written exclusively for WDD by Kumail.H.T. He is a designer, blogger & entrepreneur. He is also the creator of soon to come InkscapeMag which is a tutorial blog for the vector program Inkscape. Follow him on twitter or subscribe to his blog to be the first to know about the launch.

What techniques have you used to launch your blog? Please share them with us…

Good list. I know alot of people bag Twitter, but I am using it with twitterfeed.com for a site and it gets quite a bit of traffic from latest blog posts. There is no work to be done by the user as all twitter posts come from the RSS feed.

when i started my blog, nothing of the above was done, now, i am sponsoring other bloggers do their contest, once i given a domain name, a hosting.

http://blog.insicdesigns.com insic

nice tips. I really not considering all these steps. lol, when I start my blog, its just for fun, :)

http://www.kuhbus.com Kuhbus

i prefer to do a party…

Jay

These tips are excellent will definately put into practice. Thanks

http://www.davidhendersondesign.com David Henderson

Great post, I am about to start a blog so are useful tips! Thanks!

http://www.crearedesign.co.uk Adam

I’d also add ‘join the community’ – Find blogs with similar subjects and trade links with them. I found one of my best sources of traffic was referrals from other blogs and being part of a community of blogs who all link and support each other. Obviously there becomes a point where you don’t want to advertise competition, but done properly you can really benefit.

Also try and optimise your site for ‘ blog’ so that you turn up on Google as a blog about your favourite subject and people can find you that way. E.g: ‘web 2.0 blog’.

Thanks alot for an informative article, I’m designing my blog right now so this article fits me perfectly. I’ll be shure to store this information for my release ;>

http://www.averagejoesblog.com stuartflatt

Great tips, but I guess it depends if you are launching the blog for love or money? When I set up my blog a couple of months ago, although I would love it to make cash, the chances are in the early days it never will so it was more for the love and without financial backing.

However I have a few blogs to launch in coming months on the backend of large organisations so some of these tips will be great i am sure (expect free offers on my twitter in the coming months LOL)!

@stuartflatt

http://designwashere.com Design was here

Excellent and well written post!

This post should have been published when I have launched my blog. lol.
But its not that late I guess. Will keep this things to mind. Thanks!

http://twitter.com/shiido shiido

this is a wow post!
hehe

http://tasarhane.com tasarhane

useful.. thanks.

http://mygoodzik.com/ Mat

really right.
we were doing some of this great tips at the launch of MGZ.
thx a lot to spread good advices!

http://www.moxiedisplays.com Mike

Good article. Another I would add would be to submit your site to the hundreds of css showcase sites out there. That should bring in a few visitors.

http://www.anistock.com anistock

I have a blog and found this article excellent reading with some really good tips

http://be-ayano.com AYANO

Wow, host a party for my blog? I don’t think I’m that far yet, haha. Definitely great ideas – for people who have the budget for this kind of stuff. ;)

http://www.greennationblog.com Cassandra

This message is timely. I just launched a couple of blogs and this info will help me tremendously. This will shorten my learning curve in some important areas. You mentioned guest posting. I had actually considered having a guest to post on my blogs once a week on the same day. I thought it would give the people who comment an opportunity to chime in and be a part of what I’m trying to build. What do you think?

http://zreflections.blogspot.com/ Zackary

My blog isn’t new but these are great suggestions. I found the link for social media sights to be especially helpful.

http://mariuzzo.com/ Zuquirio Ámaur

This post is very very very interestant. I’ve already launch a blog site, and I’m thinking to take in consideration these points. Thanks.

http://retroboutiques.com Arlene

Thank you for this, after a 2 year hiatus from blogging, I am about to launch a new one for my clients and hopefully future clients with tips for them, and this advice is invaluable..

http://labs.dariux.com Dario Gutierrez

Thanks for useful tips. I have been working in some of these points for my new blog.

http://eugeniogrigolon.com Eugenio Grigolon

Very nice tips! I’ll probably apply them to my personal blog! Thanks!

http://www.borat-bruno.com Bruno

Interesting tips.. we have tried some of them in recent weeks :-)

http://tec-updates.blogspot.com Albin Sebastian

Thanks for the tips. I am planing a self hosted wordpress blog for technology. I think this will help me to launch it in a proper way

http://thecreativelab.timothybsmith.com Tim Smith

Great tips!! I just launched my blog this week and I’ll try to put some of these tips into practice. I’ve got to say though, that having a blog in the design community is hard. There are so many!! I asked myself, “What made me different?” Well…still trying to figure it out. Thanks again for the post.

http://www.QuasiPreneur.com QuasiPreneur

Great tips. There is a fine line between spamming and advertising I found out. You don’t want to be seen as spam but at the sametime you want to make yourself constantly visible….

Feeling like Britney Spears ;-)

http://www.csswebsites.nl Marc

Thanks, this is great ;)

jason

Some of these are good tips. However, the quickest way to get me to unfollow on twitter is shoving your content down my throat. It sucks, I’ve stopped following people I use to respect a great deal more.

The problem is people are looking at the social media marketing realm through the eyes of a traditional media person. You can’t adapt the old methods to the new medium. Content is king, if you create good content people will come. And don’t quit after a month if you don’t have traffic.

Success doesn’t happen overnight, and for sites that do experience success overnight by simply pushing a ton of link bait articles instead of contributing any original substance their success will be short lived.

~No offense to the others here, but thanks Jase, best post here I think…hope to read more of your tips…quality is key, and your right, some company’s start seeming like spammers, and turns me of as well, I guess you gotta walk a fine line~

http://twitter.com/ozjimbob Jimbob

“If your message is not worth spreading then millions in advertising will also fail you. ”

Of course it will. How obvious. It’s surprising how many people don’t get this, and spam their awful, boring, pointless blogs full of rip-off content all over the net. Don’t bother advertising if you’re not going to present anything interesting. And if your first aim is to make money off your blog, then by definition you’re probably not presenting anything interesting to start with. So don’t bother.

http://edward.de.leau.net Edward de Leau

Damn, I wish I would have thought of this 10 years ago when I launched my blog, unfortunately twitter didnt exist yet, Google didnt exist and even other blogs to guestpost on where scarce… :)

http://iwisuccess.infinitewebincome.com/ Desmone007

Definitely some useful tips. Social Media Marketing is a good way to spend less but get to know your potential clients and stay in tune.

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Great tips i need to make more use of twitter for sure and the giveaway idea is superb.

http://www.sametomorrow.com Adam

Nice article and good tips

http://www.webdesignbooth.com Dicky

Good post. I just launched a web design blog and are looking into how to promote it. Thanks a lot!

http://computersservicing.blogspot.com/ venkat

Thsi article useful not only to new bloggers but also exisiting bloggers as well.

http://www.cssleak.com Thomas

great post, thanks

Nokill

Don’t call it Viral twitter campaign please… that’s not a Viral…

http://pelfusion.com PelFusion

very nice tips

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Good thank you…

Abdurrahman Gemei

Content is easily number one on this list. Once the people like your first posts, they will have a great impression and will definitely subscribe to become your regular readers.

http://anthonymyerspr.com Anthony

@Edward De Leau
What a sad sad world to live in… lol

I like the guest post idea.

But I would also say prepare many blog posts before a launch. I am working on a fitness blog and I try to put an idea for a post in everyday, so when it is launched I won’t have to stress about new content.

Cool thing is, a lot of this advice can be used to create buzz for any type of online entity!

http://www.pixel-kingdom.com Webdesigner

Great Articel, just add another method I found work out very well: Add another point of view within a discussion about a controversial topic. As I did for the article @ smashing magazine about the topic “why designers should use a Mac…”. It gives you not that much traffic but you will get a small peak…

http://www.webdesigntipsonline.com Web Design Brisbane

Great article on how to launch a new blog.

I think the message is that great content is king. Not only on a blog but on a website as well.

Great content is the key to bringing your users and keeping them involved.

And optimised content is the key to getting great search engine rankings to bring more traffic to your website.

I have to be honest with you, and tell you that I do not enjoy the big splash kind of blog when I start reading a persons’ posts on a daily basis. As a matter of fact if I clicked onto a blogger site and the first thing I was bombarded with was lots of blogs and lots of ads.. I would hit back really fast and never go back.

The best blogs are from real people telling a diary of their daily adventures into their little section of airspace they share with all the rest of us.

Once you have a theme going .. you can’t just deviate from it at will. If you are a current political events person, and you post your opinions on politics, your going to have a site that is full of argumentative people, who will stay there for hours .. bickering with other people.. because they like it.. it helps them to vent their frustrations and they are just competitive people out there who love to think they have won an argument.. they will return everyday.. sometimes 5 or 6 times a day to comment on the debate as long as it steams on ahead.. and the one who wrote the blog, must be a strong willed and stand their ground person who does not change at the whim of another. They have to be able to diffuse the emotions when they see them out of control with humor that soothes and still yet keeps the adrenaline going. They have to research and KNOW what they are the facts of a situation they have an opinion about. They have to be able to back it up with links and actual factual information.. or they will simply be treated as a mouth without any real teeth to bite with, and thrown aside for better stimulation elsewhere.

If you write a journal blog about your family, your going to get people who become genuinely involved in your daily life and worry and care for you as if your next door to them. You become part of their daily life as your live yours, and they look forward to hearing from you everyday.. how the potty training is going, did you get that recipe I emailed you, they give advice and they give you hell if they think your wrong.. they are family..

If you run a contest.. then do that and only that. Be an advertising blogger. I have a friend whose blogs contain a link .. and his rating and description of the site.. and I myself flock to his link ups everyday.. I have gotten some of the best free software and tutorials from him. He also has links to ghost stories and classic rock music .. most are free source and he has so many people on his contacts list that he blew up one site and had to be issued another!

Another friend has a WHAT IS IT? type blog.. she takes a close up shot of something and posts it and clues for people to try to guess what it is.. the comments are some of the funniest things I have ever read. She is VERY successful with that one..

If your offering free CSS templates for web sites, remember most people who search those out are newbies and are in need of more than just the codes to get them to your site.
They need personal help.. I mean ask a question and you actually get back with them and honestly try to help them make their site work for them. You will get many many pay outs in mouth to ear free advertising if you do it this way.. I speak from experience.. I ran onto this site looking for a simple template to take and play with in freewebs.. before I buy into a website.

This is a novel I know.. but .. I just had to give you a small social site blogging woman’s opinion of a winning blogger site, and to let you know that it is not going to start with a bang.. but you don’t want it to… you want steady and sure growth from consistent quality entertainment on the web… that will last you for many years with many people coming back to you each day.. and after all that is what you need to attract the big money in ads isn’t it?

http://edward.de.leau.net Edward de Leau

Terri, I think the main thing is that there are 2 “types” of weblogs. The main difference between the two can be seen from either the past or the future.

From the past you have to look at the Internet around 1997 when pretty much no blogs were around. But still there were (geocities) websites about finance, books, music and so on. These kind of sites have merely taken the “format” of a weblog (sequential content) so they are really “a site about music” which happens to be in a weblog format. you can see that currently “a weblog for webdesign” (while they just as well could have made a website with whatever cms) or “a weblog about health” (in content no difference, just content in a weblog format).

TRUE Weblogs however can NOT exist without the format of weblog. They did not exist before weblogging. They are, as you say, the “personal” websites, at least that is how they are looked at.

Up until now the main amount of authorities on the web think that personal weblogs are just “a sort of weblog for those who do not think of money”. However, they are wrong and this can only be seen if you look from the future back to now. The main thing is that the integration of the object on which a person writes will have more and more ties to objects within the household of such a person.

You can see the confusion if you lookup the definition of a weblog on wikipedia. It describes really all possible kind of websites while a Weblog is something that can not exist without the format.

Ahahahaha. ha.

Launch party?
Seriously?
I don’t know anyone who has friends that wouldn’t be weirded out by a party celebrating their new blog. jesus.

It’s like when you go to chain restuarants with a huge group and everyone’s stoked and the waiter asks you, “what are we celebrating?” expecting it to be someone’s birthday. Except you’ll beam, “my new blog!”.
:(

As some others have mentioned, content is really the only way to bring and keep people. I don’t care what prize you give me or how many followers you have, they will never make a post about dishwater interesting.

http://www.demogeek.com DemoGeek

Even with all (or most) of these taken care of DemoGeek.com hasn’t yet hit that sweet spot. Whomever stops by agrees that it has great content but besides these tips, is there something else that can take a quality blog to the stratosphere?

I would certainly love to hear your advice.

http://www.chickflickreviews.net Jake

I’m getting ready to launch ChickFlickReviews.net and I’m using a few of these tips. We’re holding a contest to give away some DVD’s for simply subscribing to a list that lets you know when the site launches!

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http://www.dogalyazi.com aşkım

erri, I think the main thing is that there are 2 “types” of weblogs. The main difference between the two can be seen from either the past or the future.

From the past you have to look at the Internet around 1997 when pretty much no blogs were around. But still there were (geocities) websites about finance, books, music and so on. These kind of sites have merely taken the “format” of a weblog (sequential content) so they are really “a site about music” which happens to be in a weblog format. you can see that currently “a weblog for webdesign” (while they just as well could have made a website with whatever cms) or “a weblog about health” (in content no difference, just content in a weblog format).

http://www.bilgiliportal.com Güncel Blog

Very nice tips! I’ll probably apply them to my personal blog! good byss:)

http://www.proseltanitim.com promosyon

Great and Excellent post. opportunely, i can launch my personal blog. thanks

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Good info..thanks

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Launch party?
Seriously?
I don’t know anyone who has friends that wouldn’t be weirded out by a party celebrating their new blog. jesus.

http://www.bayrak.cc Bayrak

I have to be honest with you, and tell you that I do not enjoy the big splash kind of blog when I start reading a persons’ posts on a daily basis. As a matter of fact if I clicked onto a blogger site and the first thing I was bombarded with was lots of blogs and lots of ads.. I would hit back really fast and never go back.

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Useful information, thank you very much for sharing with us.

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I think good idea to wait patiently until the results of these applications is required. So suddenly there may be a replica?

http://www.blogtechnika.com Himanshu

Nice speculations, I am sure these tricks really works, but it needs lots of investment, anyone need to work like crazy before applying these tricks.

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Useful information, thank you very much for sharing with us.

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Brilliant! Thank you very much!

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thanks you admin :) great post! its really help me a lot

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Great and Excellent post. opportunely, i can launch my personal blog. thanks admins

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Brilliant! Thank you very much!

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Great tips, I’m gonna try and run a free give-away for a classic retro football shirt. would you do it for subscribers or for comments? I don’t know which would be better.

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Very nice tips! I’ll probably apply them to my personal blog! good byss:)

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great article, I recently started a blog and I will definitely try some of these out

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Thank’s. I start my own blog and it will be useful for me

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thank you for sharing Congratulations on a very beautiful designed site

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I launched my blog a month ago but missed doing some of these steps.
Good time to get started though!

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thank you for sharing Congratulations on a very beautiful designed site

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This article is really great…

great tips :D

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Very nice tips! I’ll probably apply them to my personal blog! good byss:)

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nice info for all bloggers !

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That’s just awesome, I still got lots of work to do on my blog. ..I’m looking for some ‘big-bang’ ideas, got some in mind. . but still I need some time, anyways thanks for this outstanding topic! I already got the urge to do this since I read the first line. :)

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great post!! tanks

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I launched my blog a month ago but missed doing some of these steps.
Good time to get started though!

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I’m really very useful to follow a long-time see this as a blog here Thank you for your valuable information.

Carrie

~~Oh man I love this website! It’s like, free school almost,
only it’s not boring (giggle)~~

excellent post! i was thinking of ideas on how to promote my blog and i like some of your ideas. just that i am not sure if a blog like mine which focuses on humor and pretty girls’ photos will be able to pull off a “free-i-pod-nano” kind of promotion successfully though.

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nice info for all bloggers thanks editor…

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thank you for sharing Congratulations on a very beautiful designed site

Carrie

~Perhaps Wayangtimes, if you gave away A humorous prize with a pretty girl theme.

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You site and the topics you’ve posted about are very informative things..It is really hard to find sites like this on the internet..I wish you luck on the road you’re headed..thanks..

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nothign and y nada.

Carrie

~Wow there’s great comments, thanks some of you’s, I get great tips, to the others…uh, good luck~

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Very nice tips! I’ll probably apply them to my personal blog! good byss:)

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Regina

Thank you for this post. I am getting ready to blog and this info is just what I needed to give me a jumpstart. Bless you!

Not everyone can afford to purchase an advert on a leading blog to get major exposure. A great alternative is spending some time and create great content for other well known blogs and get paid for it.

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Good post. I just launched a web design blog and are looking into how to promote it. Thanks a lot!